Jill Balcon (born in London on 30 January 1925 - died 18 July 2009)
Daughter of producer Sir Michael Balcon, wife of the poet Cecil Day-Lewis, and mother of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, RADA-trained worked in repertory and as a BBC announcer before entering films
as Madeleine Bray in Nicholas Nickleby(1947). Although she maintained a life-long association with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre and continued to appear in films - in Derek Jarman’s Edward II
and Wittgenstein in the nineties, and as Lady Bracknell in the play within the movie of An Ideal Husband in 1999 - and was in such notable television series as Six Days of Justice, it was her
readings of poetry and her radio performances stretching over 60 years that marked a genuinely remarkable achievement.